


It Came After America

by VenetaPsi



Category: Banana Bus Squad
Genre: Angst, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Suicide, metaphor for depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 06:07:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20559476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VenetaPsi/pseuds/VenetaPsi
Summary: The first time it happens is three days after Brian is gone. It creeps up on David slowly, shadowed, invisible, and settles in his eyes, his gaze. Forest green turns pale and sickly, bleached an unappealing grey, and David begins to drift, staring off into space.The second time is the following week, and it spreads into his hands.It continues.





	It Came After America

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: Implied and expressed Suicide, and triggers for Depression as well. PLEASE consider this before you read! Thanks

The first time it happens is three days after Brian is gone. It creeps up on David slowly, shadowed, invisible, and settles in his eyes, his gaze. Forest green turns pale and sickly, bleached an unappealing grey, and David begins to drift, staring off into space. What remains of color in his irises stays unfocused and stilted.

It's not bad. In fact, he barely notices, too wrapped up in schedule changes and recording and constant texts from his newly American-settled friend. His girlfriend gives him a look David can't name when he spends an entire Skype call with her talking about new computer modems and Ethernet cable issues and how he should learn to play chess. She gives him a quiet, "Alright David," and lets him rant about work and poor electronic construction until he needs to go. 

America doesn't come up once. 

The second time is the following week, and it spreads into his hands. Pale, graceful fingers shake as they brush his keyboard, nails thin and chewed to stubs, fingers aching for something to hold like he's fighting an addiction to cigarettes. 

He pets his dogs, runs his hands through their fur, hugs them tight and he's still having withdrawals. His aim is shit in the next recording session and everyone laughs and David does too, though it doesn't meet his dulled eyes and his clenched fists won't stop trembling. He's too busy to focus too much on them however. His hands still work well enough to sort of respond to Brian, and that's really what he cares about. 

If the brunette notices David's shorter replies, he doesn't acknowledge it. 

It continues next month, trickling into his stomach, leaving the overworked organ twisting and rolling. David can't hold anything down, forcing himself to eat small bits when Evan gives that sad, concerned frown he hates in a pregame call. David has to leave early to retch dryly over the toilet. 

Eventually he decides the nausea and vomiting is worse than the hunger pains. Within two weeks his fits into his high school clothes for the first time in years. He starts wearing a lot of big, fluffy hoodies that don't show his form at all. 

It's a fashion statement. 

Brock pulls him into a private chat when it takes his voice, leaving David's throat sore and his words quiet and weak. The only father in the group starts to pry gently, but David is already building up his walls, shutting him out with flimsy reassurances and an excuse about the dogs. 

He doesn't need to talk to speak to Brian anymore. Their texting is constant, and silent. David wasn't sure a phone could ever be stifling. 

He feels selfish for wanting more. 

It takes his heart, when his girlfriend breaks up with him. Her words are followed by a sad smile, a plea for him to get help, and a goodbye. After a few days David goes numb, and he's not even sure he ever really loved her. 

It steals his energy, sucking the life from his body and David stops streaming, sick of the people prodding, and donations begging, the assumptions and theories swarming. 

It's in his shadow, leeching his life away and now he knows it, realizes it, can't ignore it. 

But he doesn't really care anymore. 

He's more productive than ever though, even going so far as to retake some of his editing duties. Videos are churning out but they're barely his own, his voice practically absent, his presence conserved. 

Brian's worried. He tries to call David, that's how the raven-haired Irishman is sure. Their communication is constant, all day, but limited and maybe that's David's fault, for not reaching out further. For not pushing more. 

It'd certainly explain a lot. 

David floats, halfway in reality, partially gone. Marcel calls him and they talk for several hours. His friend says that he and the other guys are putting David on suicide watch. David doesn't respond to him other then a quiet, "oh". 

It's all he has the energy for. 

It talks to him, gently, harshly, cruelly, tipping him over ledges or coaxing him further into this abyss. David lets it, too far gone to care and in too much pain to escape. His girlfriend comes back, pounds on the door for him to let her in. He's pretty sure she's crying. 

David curls up under his blankets and doesn't move. 

_His channel is dead._

It takes his hand, guides him to his feet. 

_His phone is ringing._

The bathroom tile is freezing beneath his feet. 

_There's pounding on the door._

The plastic bottle is smooth between his fingers, the voices of it rich in his ears. 

_Someone running up the stairs...they had a key. David never gave her a key._

The ceiling was an awful cream color.

_A sobbing voice in his ears, an Irish lilt, fingers clutching at his shoulders. Short hair. Male._

The blackness was much better.


End file.
